


Falling Apart

by dramady



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-04
Updated: 2010-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:16:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramady/pseuds/dramady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's POV of the moment at the end of 'Mr. Ferguson is Ill Today'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Apart

The air was hot and dry and the dust was swirling in the air. John shoveled dirt into the hole and watched as it landed on Cromartie's face. He kept thinking he should've felt elated. He should've felt free or something. But he didn't. Honestly, he felt like shit. He was wondering what Ellison and his mom were talking about and if they were both saying what a screw-up he was. _Savior of humankind_, right. He wondered if Riley would ever speak to him again and he even wondered what might've happened if they'd had the honeymoon suite to themselves after all.

He glanced up when Sarah asked for the chip from Cameron, only for a moment before going back to filling the hole. He was ready to be away from this place.

But when she started to cry, John turned away from Cromartie's grave and stared for a long minute before he realized that that was really what she was doing; he'd never heard her make those sounds before.

It wasn't like his mom never cried. He remembered her welling up a little now and again. _I'll always find you_, she'd promised and he'd believed her. But this sound that she was making...

It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. No one moved and everybody, even Cameron (of course, Cameron) stared. He dropped his shovel and pulled her up, wrapping his arms around her and she was so thin. He'd forgotten how thin she was, and her whole body was wracked by the sobs and she clung to him, hand fisting in his jacket.

That was when he got scared. He'd done something to make her make those noises, noises that sounded like rage and fear and hopeless all at once.

That was unnerving too and he held her tighter, petting her hair. She weighed barely one hundred pounds, he knew, but she felt heavy, boneless, like he was the only one who could keep her on her feet.

_You didn't change it enough. You need to change it_, he'd said to her about the future. And she'd said she would try.

He never thought about what the toll was on her. He'd never thought about it, not once. She was his mom, she was Sarah Connor, that was what she did. That was all she did. She'd do anything for him, he realized again. It was who she was.

And now he was holding her up. It's okay, he wanted to say. It's okay. Only it wasn't okay. It never would be. She sobbed out his name and he held her tighter.

When Derek said that 'we all die for you,' he was talking about John's mother too.

He held her tighter and her sobs were high-pitched, frantic-sounding, and in that moment, there was no one there to protect him and only him to protect his mother. As he held her, as he felt her heart racing in her chest, he did as he'd always been taught. He looked around, kept his eye out for anything that might be a threat.

A few moments later, he heard dirt falling into the grave again. Derek and Cameron were shoveling. John didn't move, holding his mother until she stopped making those noises and gripped his arms and pushed back, eyes down. She was embarrassed, he could tell, by her breakdown. Sarah wiped at her face with the heel of her hand and bent to pick up the shards of Cromartie's chip and her rifle, taking deep breaths, clearing her throat.

He watched his mom then, how she moved. No wasted motions, eyes always moving, always assessing, always checking, never still. Or if they were still, her gaze was unnerving. Cold. Seeking. Judging. He knew she hated Riley (he knew she was right to hate Riley).

And in that moment, he realized just how alone they were, she and him. Derek was hardly ever home with his words like knives and constant reminders of what John wasn't yet. Cameron was ....

That was too much to think about.

All Sarah had was John and all John had was Sarah.

He could feel her still, how he'd held her, even though she was a few feet away now, still avoiding his gaze.

She wouldn't always be there. He knew this. He knew that was the way it was supposed to be, for all kids, not just him. The purpose of the life cycle was for the child to outlive the parent; he knew that.

What he didn't know is what he'd do when she was gone. Maybe that was why he'd pushed her away so viciously. If he did that, then it had to be easier when he was truly alone.

He had no illusions. He knew that when it came time for him to assume the place everyone told him he would eventually have, he would be alone. "We talk about it. How lonely it is," Cameron told him. Lonely enough that he talked to a machine about it, even if he knew she was no ordinary machine.

The echo in his chest told him that when Sarah was gone, he would never be the same. The fear carved out a place next to his heart and buried itself there. Could he hug her again and bury his face in her neck this time? Could he cling to her now that she was done clinging to him?

No. He'd also done that. He'd made sure of that by coming here in the first place, thinking he could escape. He was too old for that. And yet still too young.

Savior of humankind, right.

_We all died for you. We all die for you._

Fuck you, Derek. If his uncle wanted him to stop feeling, he needed to quit ripping John's heart open.

He watched his mother put the parts of Cromartie's chip in her pocket and finally she turned back to him and met his gaze. Her eyes flickered away and back and her brow furrowed. For a moment, he fancied he could see something there, just for him. Love, in her own way. Concern. Fear. All there and then gone in an instant. Then she turned away and walked to the truck. After watching her back, he went back to his shovel to finish burying Cromartie.


End file.
